<Begin Segment 4>

JA: Tell me about, did official people ever come around, say, to your store?

HT: Beg your pardon?

JA: Did official people come around to your store?

HT: Oh, yeah, three of 'em. [Laughs] They were big bruisers, came in. This is after the war broke out, right? When I was a little kid, I used to help out at the store, washing dishes, mopping the floors, and the people who came around, the patrons, they looked at me and said, "Oh, you're helping out, you're helping out your dad and mom? You're a nice boy. Here's a nickel, keep it up." Or, "Here's a dime." And whenever the customer finishes, I would go up and gather up the dishes and take it to be, to be washed. So the customer said, "Here, Hiko, here's a dime for you, good boy. Keep it up." I saved all my dimes, nickels, whatever the customers used to give me as a tip, if you want to call it a tip, and I saved up enough, I've always wanted a short-wave radio. Oh, how I wanted a short-wave radio. My friends had it. I'm the only one who doesn't have it. Well, after years, I finally saved up enough, I thought. So I asked my dad if I could have a short wave-radio. This was when my dad was still alive. We went to the store, and we found a short-wave, but what little money I had was not enough to cover the expense. So my dad said, "Okay, I'll hoof what we don't have." So he bought it for me. And this is the short-wave radio that I've been waiting for and wanting for. So when he brought it home, my dad, you know, with the short-wave radio, we needed an antenna. So he went out and got two bamboos and the roof, built the antenna, and I was able to listen to the short-wave. Now, by then Dad was gone, and these three tall big men came, came in and flashed... you know they took it out, they flashed... and they said, "FBI." And they just stomped right into the back, back of the store, and they found my radio. "This is a receiver," and they hauled it off. Why they wanted to haul off a receiver, I don't know, but anyway they did, and I insisted that they give me a receipt for it, but they never did. And at the same time, they found my what-do-you-call-it, Kodak camera, and they hauled that off, too. Those, those three guys are the only ones that came in that I can recollect right now.

JA: Why did they want those particular things?

HT: Beg your pardon?

JA: Why did they want those particular things? A camera and a receiver?

HT: That I don't know, but they hauled it off. They, like I say, after all, it's just a mere receiver. why they wanted to haul it off, I don't know. That I don't know. They just came in and hauled it off.

JA: Do you think they might have thought you were a spy?

HT: [Laughs] You mean I was that smart? [Laughs] Nah, I don't know why.

JA: How'd it make you feel?

HT: Mad. After all these years waiting, and now I had my short-wave radio. Those were the things in those days, short-wave. And then after years of waiting, here these guys just walk in and haul it off. Mad, you bet I was hopping mad, but what can I do? Nothing.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.